Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Invocation
: This affects the use of the skill itself.
1.
Speed
. This adjusts the user's AGI upward or downward when using the skill.
(Speed can be a negative value.) You can make a skill that's guaranteed to strike first
by giving it high Speed. You can also make a skill that causes its user to act last by
giving it highly negative Speed.
2.
Success %
. The chance of the skill to actually connect. I tend to use a non-100%
Success rate for skills that cause nasty status effects, such as instant death or
petrification.
3.
Repeats
. How many times the skill is triggered when used once. Most skills should
only trigger once, but multi-hit skills work precisely by repeating.
4.
TP Gain
. The amount of TP a character gains from skill use is governed by this value
right here. So, you could easily make a skill with the sole purpose of boosting your
character's TP to 100. (TP caps at 100, unlike MP, which can go all the way to 9999.)
Likewise, you could make a skill that doesn't grant TP to its user.
5.
Hit Type
. There are three possible hit types for any given skill.
•
Certain Hit
: A skill with this hit type ignores the user's accuracy and the target's
evasion stats. The only determinant of whether a Certain Hit skill will work is its
Success %.
•
Physical Attack
: A skill with this hit type connects based on the user's hit rate and is
affected by the target's evasion rate, as well as its own Success %.
•
Magical
Attack
: A skill with this hit type connects based on the target's magical
evasion rate and the skill's Success %.
6.
Animation
: What is displayed when you use the skill in battle.
•
Using Message
: This is fairly self-explanatory. The only thing I would note is that you need a
single space before your skill message. Take a look at the message for the Attack skill and you'll
see what I mean. Otherwise, in-game, it will look like “Characterattacks!” instead of “Character
attacks!” when you use the skill.
•
Below Using Message, there are three buttons:
casts *!
,
does *!
, and
uses *!
. The tool tip for the
buttons is “
Generate Use Message
: A button that automatically sets the message.” Clicking
one of those buttons replaces the text in the
Using Message
text boxes with predetermined text.
For Attack, the text would read “casts Attack!”, “does Attack!”, and “uses Attack!”, respectively.
•
Required Weapon
: This is the last item in the Skills tab, and it does what it implies. You can
adjust it so that a certain skill requires a certain weapon type (such as a rain of arrows ability
requiring a bow or crossbow). You can be strict and leave it at one weapon type or relax the
restriction a little and add a second weapon type. (A powerful swing of your weapon can be
done with both a sword and an axe, for example.)
You can see a screenshot of the Items tab (Figure
3-5
), but you'll probably understand why I'm going to gloss over
the details rather than actually explain it. It holds many similarities to the Skills tab. (Neat fact: Internally, Skills are
also considered items, so this is merely a case of the stock functionality matching the code.) So there's only one or two
new things to even mention.
